Defiant Life Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith

• 1 Prelude: Survival 03:25
• 2 Sumud 12:19
• 3 Floating River Requiem (for Patrice Lumumba) 06:28
• 4 Elegy: The Pilgrimage 12:45
• 5 Kite (for Refaat Alareer) 08:22
• 6 Procession: Defiant Life 10:21
• Total Runtime 53:40

Info for Defiant Life

Defiant Life, Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith’s second duo recording for ECM after 2016’s A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke, is a profound meditation on the human condition, reflecting both the hardships and acts of resilience it entails. But at the same time, it also proves a testament to the duo’s unique artistic relationship and the boundless forms of musical expression it yields. For when Vijay and Wadada meet in music, they simultaneously connect on multiple levels:

“Our time together, from the moment we meet right until the moment we play, is most often spent talking about the state of the world, studying histories of liberation, and sharing readings and historical references, as a means of grounding ourselves purposefully in our present.” In his liner note, Iyer has transcribed such a conversation between himself and Smith at length, revealing a closer glimpse at the individual themes that inspired the album and the term “defiant” in particular.

Two of the songs on the album are dedicated to significant figures from the more and slightly less recent past – Wadada’s “Floating River Requiem” to the Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba, assassinated in 1961, and Vijay’s “Kite” to Palestinian writer and poet Refaat Alareer, killed in Gaza in 2023. It is within this framework of thought and reflection that their music speaks without hesitation.

From darkness, the “Prelude: Survival” comes creeping into existence, drawing the listener in to its gloomy presence. In what feels like pitch black, Wadada and Vijay sparsely add colour, filling the canvas with associative sounds rather than explicit images. Then, bristling with an iridescent glow that’s emphasised by high-pitched organ-like electronic sweeps and swells (belonging to Vijay’s instrumental set-up alongside piano and Fender Rhodes), “Sumud” presents the striking idiosyncrasy with which the trumpeter and pianist interact as they untangle a deep aural landscape. A “cosmic” quality comes to mind when confronted with the pulsations and sound tapestries that unfold in this music, recalling their last duo effort in title.

“We work from our individual languages and materials,” notes Vijay in his extensive liner note, as well as “our methods of aural attunement, and what I would call a shared aesthetic of necessity”. A necessity both urgent and peaceful but sometimes also violent, ominously stated in “Sumud”, then endowed with a celebratory aura throughout the “Floating River Requiem”, still doubtful but with silver linings on “Elegy: The Pilgrimage” and devastatingly beautiful in the concluding “Procession: Defiant Life”.

Prompted on his rapport to Vijay and their shared ability to simply make music ‘appear’, Wadada remarks that “one of the things that’s so unique is our inability to allow ourselves to fix stuff [i.e., fully predetermine the music]. I think that to fix stuff we’d need a different kind of cap on our heads. And when we move into our performances, there’s a good level of focus that’s already there just because we’ve been thinking about it, but not fixing it, over a span of time. When we come into the area to actually build the pieces, we’re still open to those vast moments of inspiration. I think it’s pretty extraordinary to step into allowing it to move into us and out of us, allowing that present moment to have its appearance.”

Writing about the duo in the context of their last effort, The Washington Post noted how “Smith’s and Iyer’s playing interlaces beautifully. They share a sense of pacing, suspense and thoughtful choices of notes and phrases.” Iyer and Wadada’s shared love for detail and patience in constructing careful sentences and exchanges turn each developed structure into a sound-sphere of its own, and on Vijay’s “Kite” this manifests in a deeply lyrical and soothing reciprocity between Fender Rhodes and trumpet.

If Defiant Life is a contemplation on life as such, then it is its sense of wonder that comes to full expression here. The album, recorded in Lugano, was produced by Manfred Eicher.

"This recording session was conditioned by our ongoing sorrow and outrage over the past year’s cruelties, but also by our faith in human possibility." (Vijay Iyer)

Wadada Leo Smith, trumpet
Vijay Iyer, piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics

Vijay Iyer
was born in Albany, New York. He studied mathematics and physics at Yale, and received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in the cognitive science of music from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been on faculty at Manhattan School of Music, New York University, and the New School, and is the Director of The Banff Centre’s International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, in Alberta, Canada. In January 2014 he joined the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University as the first Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts.

Iyer’s many musical collaborators have included Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Butch Morris, George Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers, William Parker, Graham Haynes, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rez Abbasi, Craig Taborn, Ambrose Akinmusire, Liberty Ellman, Steve Lehman, Matana Roberts, Tyshawn Sorey, Miya Masaoka, Pamela Z, John Zorn, Mari Kimura, DJ Spooky, Karsh Kale, and Talvin Singh. He has also worked with poets Mike Ladd, Amiri Baraka, Charles Simic, and Robert Pinsky. His compositions have been commissioned and performed by The Silk Road Ensemble, Ethel, Brentano String Quartet, JACK Quartet, the American Composers Orchestra, Hermès Ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble, and Imani Winds.

The ensemble heard on Mutations was assembled especially for this album. Miranda Cuckson has worked closely with composers including Elliott Carter, Boulez and Lachenmann. Her recording of Luigi Nono’s ”La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura” was named a Best Classical Recording of 2012 by the New York Times. Michi Wiancko’s recent album releases include works by French composer/virtuoso Émile Sauret. She leads her own band Kon Michi. Kivie Cahn-Lipman is the founding cellist of the International Contemporary Ensemble. Violist Kyle Armbrust also plays with ICE, as well as with the Argento Ensemble and the Orchestra of the League of Composers. He has worked with Steve Reich, Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen, amongst other composers.

Vijay Iyer has recorded for labels including Asian Improv, Red Giant, Sunnyside, Savoy Jazz, Artist House, ACT and, most recently, Pi Recordings, which issued Holding It Down, a collaboration with Mike Ladd, setting poetry by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. He first recorded for ECM in 2007, as a member of Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory on the live album Far Side. Further ECM recordings with Vijay Iyer are in preparation.

Wadada Leo Smith
trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser has been active in creative contemporary music for over forty years. His systemic music language Ankhrasmation is significant in his development as an artist and educator.

Born in Leland, Mississippi, Smith's early musical life began in the high school concert and marching bands. At the age of thirteen, he became involved with the Delta Blues and Improvisation music traditions. He received his formal musical education with his stepfather Alex Wallace, the U.S. Military band program (1963), Sherwood School of Music (1967-69), and Wesleyan University (1975-76). Mr. Smith has studied a variety of music cultures: African, Japanese, Indonesian, European and American.

He has taught at the University of New Haven (1975-'76), the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY (1975-'78), and Bard College (1987-'93). He is currently a faculty member at The Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts. He is the director of the African-American Improvisational Music program, and is a member of ASCAP, Chamber Music America, and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

Mr. Smith's awards and commissions include: MAP Fund Award for “Ten Freedom Summers” (2011), Chamber Music America New Works Grant (2010), NEA Recording Grant (2010), Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2009-2010), Other Minds residency and "Taif", a string quartet commission (2008), Fellow of the Jurassic Foundation (2008), FONT(Festival of New Trumpet) Award of Recognition (2008), Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Award (2005), Islamic World Arts Initiative of Arts International (2004), Fellow of the Civitela Foundation (2003), Fellow at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2001), "Third Culture Copenhagen" in Denmark-presented a paper on Ankhrasmation (1996), Meet the Composer/Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Commissioning Program (1996), Asian Cultural Council Grantee to Japan (June-August 1993), Meet the Composer/Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Commissioning Program (1990), New York Foundation on the Arts Fellowship in Music (1990), Numerous Meet the Composer Grants (since 1977), and National Endowment for the Arts Music Grants (1972, 1974, 1981).

Mr. Smith's music philosophy Notes (8 Pieces) Source a New. World Music: Creative Music has been published by Kiom Press (1973), translated and published in Japan by Zen-On Music Company Ltd. (1976). In 1981 Notes was translated into Italian and published by Nistri-Litschi Editori.

He was invited to a conference of artists, scientists and philosophers "Third Culture Copenhagen" in Denmark 1996, and presented a paper on his Ankhrasmation music theory and notational system for creative musicians. His interview was recorded for Denmark T.V., broadcasted September 1996.

Some of the artists Mr. Smith has performed with are : Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Richard Teitelbaum, Joseph Jarman, George Lewis, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Cyrill, Oliver Lake, Anthony Davis, Carla Bley, David Murray, Don Cherry, Jeanne Lee, Milton Campbell, Henry Brant, Richard Davis, Tadao Sawai, Ed Blackwell, Sabu Toyozumi, Peter Kowald, Kazuko Shiraishi, Han Bennink, Misja Mengelberg, Marion Brown, Kazutoki Umezu, Kosei Yamamoto, Charlie Haden, Kang Tae Hwan, Kim Dae Hwan, Tom Buckner, Malachi Favors Magoustous and Jack Dejohnette among many others.

Mr. Smith currently has three ensembles: Golden Quartet, Silver Orchestra, and Organic. His compositions have also been performed by other contemporary music ensembles: AACM-Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Da Capo Chamber Player, New Century Players, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Contemporary Chamber Players (University of Chicago), S.E.M. Ensemble, Southwest Chamber Music, Del Sol String Quartet, New York New Music Ensemble, ne(x)tworks, and California E.A.R. Unit.

Mr. Smith's music for multi-ensembles has been performed since 1969. "Tabligh" for double-ensemble was performed by Golden Quartet and Classical Persian ensemble at Merkin Concert Hall (2006) and by Golden Quartet and Suleyman Erguner's Classical Turkish ensemble at Akbank Music Festival in Istanbul (2007). His largest work "Odwira" for 12 multi-ensembles (52 instrumentalists) was performed at California Institute of the Arts (March 1995). His Noh piece "Heart Reflections" was performed in Merkin Concert Hall, NY (November 1996).

Booklet for Defiant Life